Grab has introduced its innovation unit Grab Ventures to the Indonesian market and is aiming to invest IDR3 trillion (US$250 million) into startups based in the country. Grab aim to invest more in Indonesia.

The ride-sharing platform is keen to use the investment to help these startups scale up nationally and across South East Asia, by providing a blend of South East Asian market access, mentorship, technology capabilities and strategic investments.

In addition, Grab also announced a programme called Grab Ventures Velocity, to specifically support Indonesian startups in scaling stage, in support and partnership from the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (Kominfo), Creative Economy Agency (BEKRAF), Amazon Web Services (AWS) and MDI Ventures, Telkom Indonesia’s corporate venture capital initiative.

Indonesia has been the home of some notable tech unicorns. Grab aim to invest more in Indonesia and it has pioneered IDEA Hub, a digital economy platform to accelerate economic access to G20 countries, another initiative to provide learning materials and best practices for Indonesia’s digital companies.

Grab recently secured US $2bn from a range of investors, led by Toyota, which it says it will use to drive its new ambitions to become an app to plug the online to offline (O2O) gap. Grab aim to invest more in Indonesia and it will play a long game in Indonesia's future.